Sour Cream Almond Pound Cake

1 cup butter
3 cups sugar
6 eggs - separated
1 teaspoon Almond Extract
3 cups flour
1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven 325 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar.

Separate egg yolks from whites.  I suggest getting a LARGE bowl for the egg whites.  This one ended up being too small.

Add in egg yolks and almond extract to the butter mixture.

Add in 1 cup of flour to butter mixture. Then incorporate 1/2 cup of sour cream. Repeat with another cup of flour and the 2nd half of the full cup of sour cream, finishing with another cup of flour.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until they are stiff peaks.  Here's a video from YouTube if you've never had to do this before that helped me out:

Ha... my egg whites got duck lips!

Fold the egg whites carefully into the batter.

Pour batter into a floured and greased angel food cake pan, the kind with the high straight sides with the cone in the middle.

Bake for one hour and twenty minuets.

Cool in pan for 5 minuets.

Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

So my friend Micaela of Striving Bean made these once for a treat day back when I was in corporate world.  Ever since that day I have wanted these bars/cake again.  I finally made them the other day... and made only one mistake, but, it was still delicious!

Ingredients
Bars:
4 eggs
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
15-ounce can pumpkin
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Icing:
8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. NOTE: When sifting flour measure first, then sift.  Not the other way around (which, yes, is what I did... duh!).

Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth.

Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan.

Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth.

Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined.

 

Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

 

See how thin my "cake" is... well that's because of the sifting of the flour and then measuring!  

This should be more like a cake than like a bar.

Lemon Bundt Cake with Glaze

Ingredients:
1 (18.25 ounce) package lemon cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant lemon pudding mix
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 cup lemon-lime flavored carbonated beverage (I used Sprite)
Zest from one lemon
Juice from the zested lemon
Splash of lemon extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray bundt pan with Pam Baking Spray (this is different than the usual one you would use, this has flour in it).

In a large bowl, mix cake mix, pudding mix, and oil. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the lemon-lime soda, add lemon zest and lemon extract. Mix.

Pour batter into bundt pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool if you can... or eat a piece right away like Jerome and I did.

For glaze combine the juice from lemon and powdered sugar. If the consistency is too thin, add more powdered sugar. If it is too thick, add lemon juice (bottled or from another lemon, or even Sprite).